Voters Approve Amendment To Impose Limits On State Expenditures

The question was: "Shall the constitution of the state be amended to impose a limit on state expenditures?"

"Of course it should," said Connecticut voters, who approved the amendment by a 4-to-1 ratio.

The amendment will limit increases in state spending to the national inflation rate or the growth in personal income in the state, whichever is greater. State spending has outpaced one of those benchmarks in seven of the last 10 years, according to the Connecticut Public Expenditure Council.

Proponents had said the legislature failed to control runaway state spending during the 1980s and could not be trusted to control it in the future.

"We're very pleased not only to see this win but also with the substantial margin of support behind it," said Kenneth O. Decko, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, which campaigned for the spending cap.

"The numbers still have to be refined, but what this means is that the next budget will not be able to increase more than 6 percent," he said. "That may still be too much, but it compares to the 11 percent increases of the '80s.

"This means we're not going to have tax increases, which is good both for the public and for the business climate."

But opponents, including the leaders of several statewide labor unions, said the amendment was deceptively appealing. Although the prospect of lower spending is a guaranteed winner at the ballot box, they said the amendment would strip lawmakers of their duty to determine the state's true financial needs.

They said the cost of some items, such as health care, are growing substantially faster than inflation or the growth in income. Those items, they said, could be jeopardized by the amendment.

Although the amendment passed easily, the new cap may be difficult to implement. The state budget is so complex that calculating the size of state spending is not a simple task.

Lawmakers could skirt the cap by putting expenditures into one

of three exempt categories: debt repayment, grants to so-called distressed municipalities and the first-year cost of federally mandated programs.

Even beyond the budget-writing legerdemain, the amendment provides an above-board way to overspend the cap: by a three-fifths vote of the House and Senate.

Supporters, however, say even if the legislature is inclined to evade or override the cap, the amendment will serve a purpose. Requiring lawmakers to calculate the amount of new spending the amendment would allow will at least force them to measure the proposed budget against what the amendment suggests taxpayers can afford, proponents said.

Another question, which was first on the ballot but dwarfed by the spending-cap amendment, will ease restrictions on out-of-state voter registration. According to unofficial returns, the proposal passed with a sizable margin. Until now, only members or associates of the armed forces or federal government workers and their families could register to vote by mail. The amendment passed Tuesday allows the General Assembly to permit anyone living out of state temporarily to register by mail.

"This is a positive step for opening up the democratic process in Connecticut," Secretary of State Pauline Kezer said. "I will be proposing even better regulations for voter registration in the next session of the legislature."

The limits on out-of-state registration were added to the state constitution in 1962 to mirror a federal law passed four years earlier. Since then, the federal government has expanded the availability of mail-in registration, but Connecticut law has not kept pace. In some cases, the conflict has forced the secretary of the state's office to mail out-of-state registrants ballots showing only the federal candidates, since state law did not recognize their registration